Before we hear from Rand Paul, we watch a short video narrated by his adoring wife. She recalls meeting a “cute, curly-haired guy” who was 26 (although he looked 18). She assures us he’s smart and he’s “done surgery on children from Guatemala.”

He quotes Henry David Thoreau, Patrick Henry and Joseph Schumpeter. Clearly, he kills time surfing Bartleby.com.

Paul begins his stump speech with a customized bang: He arrived at the Elks Lodge via Uber. His driver, Christopher David, waves from the back of the room. David has garnered local media coverage for refusing to follow Portsmouth’s anti-Uber ordinance.

Paul’s point: Competition works, so leave Uber alone.

“Let’s make the rules less for cabs so everybody can compete,” he says, to prove he’s not anti-Taxi Commission.

Paul proclaims himself part of the undefined “liberty movement.” What’s that all about?

It began at Runnymede in 1215 with the Magna Carta, Paul says. Rummaging my aging brain (I was a History major, for goodness sake), I conjure an image of British protestors rising up against their king and laying the groundwork for constitutional democracy.

Are Americans crushed under the boot of an all-powerful king? Paul must think so.

At least he gets to run to be our next king.

Paul doesn’t want our government doling out money to those in need. Its primary role is keeping the peace and enforcing contracts, he says.

Who needs government handouts, anyway? He tells us the poorest people in America are richer than the middle class in many poorer countries around the world. I feel better already.

Get Paul talking about foreign policy and he sounds, well, wise. We’ve spent $1 trillion in Iraq and sacrificed “nearly 5,000 American lives” with the result that Iraq’s best friend is Iran.

“And its second best friend is Russia,” he scoffs.

Placing a cherry on top, he adds, “If we’ve learned one single thing in the last 20 years, it’s that every time we’ve toppled a secular dictator, we’ve gotten chaos. We have to avoid being sucked into unwinnable wars.”

When asked whether America should take more Syrian refugees, he says he supports Beck’s plan to “bring some Christians over here” from Syria. When the dust settles on the unfolding attacks in Paris, Paul predicts the terrorists won’t be Christians. He deems non-Christian refugees a security risk.

Oh, and Paul wants teachers to carry guns because “almost all shootings are in places that are advertised as defenseless.”

In his eight-minute speech under a summer sun (on Oct. 29!), Jeb Bush emphasizes his ability to “listen and learn” from others. When he ran for governor of Florida in 1998, he assures us that he “listened first” to voters.

As evidence, he recalls a mother he met on the campaign trail who raised her hand at an event and criticized him for not caring about people in need. Bush got to know her—and her developmentally disabled daughter—and says he spent four days as her “student” while she educated him about the plight disabled people face.

In the end, Bush brags that he wound up funding programs for the developmentally disabled and that “31,000 families got the care they deserve.”

I’m tearing up, thinking that this guy’s the real compassionate conservative in the Bush clan.

That makes it all the more ironic when he wraps up his short talk and walks off the stage. He takes no questions. Those who try to nab him for a one-on-one chat before he leaves must yell to make themselves heard as Kid Rock’s “Born Free” perforates our eardrums.

For a self-professed listener, Bush shows no interest in listening.

I excoriated Lincoln Chafee for his lifeless seven-minute speech on May 31. Copying the Chafee playbook, Bush shows up, gives a memorized little meringue of a speech and darts away while skipping the Q&A.

How does a sinking candidate cope, especially after a less-than-stellar debate performance? If you’re Jeb Bush, you insist you’re a “doer,” not a “talker” like those oversize personalities who bested him in last night’s debate.

Next, you attack the media. Bush says the debate lacked “substantive questions” and the moderators settled for “gotcha questions.”

According to Bush, a leader needs “a servant’s heart.” A president should “talk less and act more.” And he’ll “restore a degree of civility in Washington, D.C.”

Marco Rubio has dry mouth. He’s hardly the only one struggling with a dearth of saliva. Millions of people suffer from xerostomia, including about 20% of the elderly.

Rubio, 44, has a mild to moderate case (I play a doctor on TV). Or he has a nervous tic.

In the nearly two hours I’ve observed him over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed that he gulps water frequently and swishes it around his mouth. Poor guy.

When he arrives for this morning’s meeting, he sees the bottle of Polar water set out for him. Then he asks the host, “Do you think there’s any chance I can score some coffee? I try not to drink coffee after noon.”

The latest research shows that coffee doesn’t dehydrate you (I play a nutritionist on TV). Maybe he derives extra benefit from the water in coffee. Maybe he just likes coffee at breakfast time. Maybe he’s…Jeez, I’m starting to sound like CNN.

Rubio opens by declaring, “We’ll either be greater than we’ve ever been or we’ll be a nation in decline.” Nothing like a false either-or construct to make a great first impression!

To his credit, Rubio loves to think in threes. He lists three points to support virtually every assertion he makes.
Some examples:

1. He brags that he warned about Libya, Syria and Russia before hell broke loose in those countries.

2. When asked why a war-weary populace should support his aggressive worldview, he gives three reasons: we can ignore ISIS or Iran but they’re not going to ignore us, foreign affairs matter now more than ever (“Global instability leads to economic consequences for this country.”) and it’s better to “deal with it” (a.k.a. wage war) now rather than later when it’ll be harder and more costly.

3. He wants to be a president for all Americans “including those who hate you, who would never vote for you and who actively try to undermine you.”

I don’t know what I like more—Rubio’s tripartite rhetorical rhythm or his willingness to forgive those pesky underminers.

When asked how he would promote peace in the Middle East, Rubio again makes three points. First, he claims that ISIS would exist “irrespective of the Palestinian question” so even if Israel and its surrounding enemies turned into fast friends, radical jihad would pose a threat. Second, he says that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority “have walked away from various generous offers over the last few years.” Finally, he tells us that he’s traveled to the “Palestinian territories and I’ve seen how difficult it is to take on political leadership. There’s no glory in it.”

You heard Bernie Sanders say in last night’s debate that public college tuition should be free, right? Rubio’s response: “Nothing in the world is free. Someone will have to pay for it.”

Then Rubio adds, “I’m the only Republican candidate that talks about higher education. It’s one of my three planks.” He vows to become “the vocational president,” he beams with pride.

His plan encourages young people who want to be mechanics or welders to “go to high school in the morning and trade school in the afternoon.”

I just hope there is a Chipotle located between the high school and the trade school so these kids can grab a cheap, filling lunch.

Occasionally, Rubio breaks free from his moorings and sounds almost centrist. When asked about the heroin epidemic, he wants to punish the dealers but help those in need.

“Users are largely victims of a disease,” he says. “Criminalization of usage is scaring more people from seeking support.”

It’s hard to argue with that. I dare you to challenge him and hear his three reasons why he’s right.

Any self-respecting Republican presidential candidate will answer YES and YES.

But Lindsey Graham goes further. Discussing the threat of terrorism, he says it’s not just his opinion that America is more vulnerable than ever.

“That’s also the opinion of Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Madeleine Albright and Brent Scowcroft,” he says to a paltry crowd in a sad little “conference room” just past the restrooms at a seen-better-days diner.

Graham brings along a special guest, his senatorial buddy John McCain. An unannounced bonus! It’s so endearing to watch the two military vets swap well-worn barbs that I’d pay (albeit modestly and only with dinner included) to enjoy their shtick in Vegas.

Weirdly, McCain winds up talking almost as much as Graham during their 40-minute appearance. After his introduction, McCain retreats to the back of the room and cradles his smartphone.

But within 15 minutes, he returns to center stage at Graham’s invitation to help answer our questions. Graham looks tired and forlorn at times, especially when a few eccentrics ramble before posing semi-coherent questions. McCain, by contrast, loves every minute.

Graham mentions that the U.S. could undermine Putin by selling natural gas to European countries. I ask why we don’t do that. What’s stopping us?

You think war is Graham’s answer to every problem? He knows you think that, so in his stump speech he says, “Educating a poor young girl over there is better than dropping a bomb on her head.”

Intrigued, a soulful teen asks why the U.S. doesn’t spend more to fight world hunger and less on defense.

“How do you get the food to [Syrian] refugees if it has to go through ISIS?” McCain fires back.

Graham responds more gently. He looks at the kid and declares, “You have a heart.” Then he says the best way to help poor refugees is for America to flex its muscles, help ensure our allies’ security and improve their economies so that they can buy the food they need (from us, he adds) for their citizens.

When asked about Obamacare, Graham labels it “cradle-to-grave socialized medicine.” That’s funny, since private insurers compete to offer health coverage under Obamacare and their stocks continue to rise.

McCain tells us that every candidate says, “This is the most important election of our lifetime.” Then he says it (“This is the most important election at least since the 1930s.”).

Back to Graham, disarming as ever. Out of the blue, he says, “I want to be president in the most desperate way possible.”

How can you not vote for someone who speaks with such unguarded honesty?

For a guy known for his humorless, let’s-talk-turkey delivery, Marco Rubio shows a splash of personality almost immediately. Seconds after taking the microphone from the woman who introduces him today, he thanks her and adds, “And thanks for that nice lunch with dessert included.”

I love that he expresses gratitude for dessert.

He gets cuter by the minute when he jokes, “It’s nap time for me.”

He turns serious after that. His 20-minute stump speech includes bromides such as, “A new American century is within our reach.” He favors a “disruptive new economy” and tells us that what makes America special isn’t its size, large economy or the wealth of its citizens. It’s the promise of the American Dream.

His cuteness wears off quickly.

Rubio lacks the charisma of a Trump. His facial expression doesn’t change much. His only gesture is a downward hand chop. And in 45 minutes, he doesn’t smile once.

One of his top priorities, he tells us, involves modernizing our higher education system. I’d rate that 18th on my what-our-president-should-worry-about list, but that’s just me.

Rubio bashes how colleges earn accreditation. Apparently, there are six accreditation groups recognized by the U.S. Education Department that decide if a college qualifies for federal aid. Rubio finds this outrageous, arguing that it kills competition, fuels ever-rising tuition and prevents working moms (and other non-traditional students) from gaining access to alternate education providers.

Maybe he’s got a point. A different accreditation system might offer more choices and less student loan debt. Is he onto something?

From there, he identifies why the world is scarier than ever. Topping his list is “the lunatic” running North Korea. Only then does he mention Iran, radical jihadists “on three or four continents,” China expanding its military in the contested South China Sea and the “gangster in Moscow” known as Mr. Putin.

Using words like “lunatic” and “gangster” make the 44-year-old Florida senator sound like a blunt, no-nonsense name-caller. That’s a “skill” sorely lacking in our current president, although the current GOP front-runner can lead a master class on it.

Rubio throws in obligatory campaign fodder: the “this is the most important election of our lifetime,” the “thank you for your service” to veterans in the audience, the tribute to the sacrifices parents make for a better life for their children.

He takes 10 questions. When asked how he would replace Obamacare, he proposes giving a tax credit to Americans to buy their own health insurance. Once that happens, he claims that private insurers will compete for our business by offering lower prices and higher quality.

Consider how many auto insurers advertise on TV, he tells us. He cites Progressive, GEICO, State Farm, Allstate—they all want to sell you a policy because you’re the one paying for it.

Hey, Marco: Comparing complex health insurance to relatively simple auto coverage is like comparing “Inception” to “Dumb and Dumber.” Both are movies. But they’re not in the same league.

The last questioner asks about the high cost of cancer drugs. Will Rubio’s plan address that?

There’s something so sad about a 70-year-old guy running for president who has no chance.

I’m already sad when I enter the room. Then Pataki makes me sadder.

When asked why his website doesn’t clearly spell out his positions—and why the last news update on his website is dated Sept. 16—he replies that he’s low on money.

If he can’t afford to post anything in the past three weeks, he’s…well, don’t make me cry.

Pataki spent 12 years as New York’s governor, but he’s been out of politics for nearly a decade. He’s fed up with Washington’s “intrusiveness” and repeatedly assures us he intends to “give power back to the people in the states” as our president.

“We are an optimistic nation,” he says. “Today, too many people think that the best is behind us.”

I’m going to chew off a finger if I hear one more candidate speak in such loftily empty terms.

He brings up his two sons’ military service. Marco Rubio, whom I also saw today, mentions that his brother is a former Green Beret.

Want to run for president? Get your family members to enlist. Then brag about it.

Like most politicians, Pataki excels at evading questions. When asked about China, he hops right to India, which he calls an “enormous offsetting force” that’s more aligned with the U.S.

Unlike some Republicans, Pataki acknowledges climate change as a problem and promises that as president, “I’m not going to reject science. I’m going to embrace science.”

He doesn’t mention it, but I see from a quick online search that he runs the Pataki-Cahill group, a firm that works in “energy, infrastructure and clean tech.” That explains how he utters phrases such as “thin-film, nano-coated solar panels” without stammering.

Not to pick on a guy that’s down, but Pataki says the Budapest Accord (providing security promises to Ukraine) was signed in 1990. It’s actually 1994.

Someone better bring Bernie hot tea and honey. If he’s this hoarse now, how’s he going to make himself heard in four months when the campaign really heats up?

And here’s my other worry about the rumpled 74-year-old: He’s going to throw out his right shoulder. With almost every sentence, Bernie gestures emphatically as if he’s pounding an invisible table about two feet in front of his chin. He never stops pounding, except when he’s pointing and stabbing at the air.

Setting my anxiety aside, I marvel at the contrast between Bernie and Hillary. You couldn’t ask for two less similar candidates in terms of style and substance.

Like her husband, Hillary often shows up late at events. Bernie prides himself on punctuality. He aims to begin speaking no later than 10 minutes after the announced time. Today, he started at 4:05 (just five minutes late).

Hillary dresses with crisp professionalism. Bernie rolls his sleeves up sloppily and wears black shoes that look, well, worn. (He didn’t polish them this morning, I assure you.) I sat so close to him that I could see his watch, and it’s hardly fancy-schmancy; it wouldn’t surprise me if he bought it from one of those Manhattan street vendors.

Bernie doesn’t vary his tone. He doesn’t try to charm us. He’s angry, dismayed and feisty. Hillary veers from aggressive to bemused to solemn in seconds.

Hillary likes to talk about her mother as a role model and often weaves in anecdotes involving other Clintons. I’ve now seen Bernie speak for 90 minutes—20 minutes today and 70 minutes on August 3—and he’s made only one personal comment: Today he mentions in passing, “My parents never went to college.”

On issues, Bernie and Hillary square off like Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed. He voted against the Iraq War and the Patriot Act and opposed NAFTA along with other free-trade pacts. Hillary voted for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act and generally supports trade agreements.

Bernie actually thinks he can win this thing. He tells us today, “we have a really good chance” to nab the Granite State primary and “we’ve got a shot” to win Iowa. And if he wins Iowa and New Hampshire, “that opens the door to Super Tuesday,” he explains, which in turn can propel him to the nomination.

Because today’s appearance marks the opening of his Portsmouth campaign headquarters, he gives the friendly (but strangely calm and somewhat impassive) crowd some tips.

“Go outside your zone of comfort,” he advises. “Don’t just talk to each other. We all know how brilliant we are.”

Instead, he urges us to enlighten Republicans on the issues. Republicans “will cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and education,” and Bernie fears that some voters may not realize that.

He reports that his campaign has received more individual contributions than any other candidate of either party—about 450,000 to date—with an average amount of $31.20.

Lawrence Lessig is running for president. If he wins, he’s going to advance his signature issue—electoral reform and campaign finance reform—in the early weeks of his presidency until he signs legislation to overhaul the system. Then he’ll resign and let his VP become president.

I’m not making this up.

Lessig, a 54-year-old Democrat, won’t just pick a VP to return a favor or settle a bet. He says he’ll let delegates at the Democratic convention select his VP on his behalf.

He’s not a crackpot. He’s a Harvard Law School professor.

Imagine someone who runs for president only to quit if victorious. It would be like Stephen Colbert quitting after last night’s Late Show debut. If Lessig is willing to give up the presidency, I can surely give up my spot in line at Market Basket for the lady behind me with five items in her cart.

Lessig looks like Jeff Daniels and acts like my old college professors. He gestures emphatically with both hands. He cites the Framers of the Constitution to support his assertions. And he begins and ends his remarks by reinforcing his main point: “There’s no relationship between what the average voter cares about and what our government does.”

To convey the state of our defective democracy, Lessig offers an analogy. Say you want to hop in your car and drive to the beach. As you weigh where to go, there’s a problem.

“The car has four flat tires and somebody stole the battery,” he says.

For Lessig, you can’t get anywhere if the underlying system—our representative democracy—doesn’t function.

Lessig constantly cites research to back up his comments. He’s a walking, talking footnote—and I mean that as a compliment.

From his trenchant summary of Trump’s campaign—“He was a reality TV star. Now he’s just continuing that”—to his ability to quote Game of Thrones to make a point, Lessig breezily engages his audience. He’s not a stuffy academic.

He’s not presidential either. But for a single-issue candidate, at least he’s not grating. If he hits 1% in the polls, he qualifies for the debate.

When Clinton finally appears, she glides through her remarks comfortably. She tells us her mother taught her, “Everyone deserves a chance, and everyone deserves a champion.”

That must be why I’m not in politics. My mother taught me to eat my broccoli.

As Hillary speaks, I turn away to see people playing tennis and walking their dogs across the street in a park. Don’t they know who’s in their midst? Aren’t they curious about the mob scene just 200 yards away?

I both admire and loathe them for living their lives while a leading candidate promises to “hold corporations accountable” and “fight for women’s issues because what’s good for women is good for America.” I bet those tennis bums don’t even know that before Barack Obama became president, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. (I know, thanks to Hillary.)

Surprisingly, Hillary attacks Trump (“their flamboyant frontrunner,” she calls him) for a good one or two minutes. She lambastes him for saying he’d be “far better” on women’s issues than the former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State.

Her pollsters must take Trump seriously, because she envisions something almost unfathomable: Trump winning the nomination.

“Now that’s a general election debate that’s going to be a lot of fun,” she says.

Then she knocks Rubio, Bush, Carson and even Rand Paul. Those four must register some kind of threat for her to even mention them by name.

“I’m not going to sit idly by as Republicans shame and blame women,” she explains.

No one accuses Hillary of sitting around and not fending off opponents. But was she sitting around this morning for no good reason, keeping us broiling under a hot sun? Where’s FOX News to investigate?

Most candidates welcome any and all to attend their campaign events. They crave a big turnout. Not Ted Cruz.

As you pull into the host’s long driveway, you see a “PRIVATE EVENT, INVITED GUESTS ONLY, ALL OTHERS REFUSED ENTRY” sign. That less-than-warm greeting turns coldly ironic once Sen. Cruz starts his spiel.

Cruz repeatedly assures us he’s a unifier who can attract everyone from “evangelicals to libertarians to moderates to Reagan Democrats.” He even mentions atheists.

“No one wants to elect a puritanical scold,” he tells us. “I believe religious liberty is an issue that cuts across divides. It’s a powerful unifying issue.”

Delivering his stump speech in the host’s spacious front yard under a big tent, Cruz claims he’s a “big tent Republican” as he points above his head. There’s just one problem: Tea-party favorite Cruz’s positions leave no room for divergent views.

Get Cruz talking about abortion or gay marriage and you begin to understand that INVITED GUESTS ONLY warning. Uninvited folks might gasp, but these fans cheer him on.

Before the candidate arrives, an aide hands Cruz bumper stickers to the crowd. One of them bellows, “It’s like the government passing out handouts,” and everyone laughs. Meanwhile, I overhear the 60ish guy seated in front of me telling two rapt women about “Lazarus and the rich man,” a Biblical parable that actually sounds pretty interesting.

You’re wondering what Cruz would do on his first day as president, aren’t you? Good, ‘cause he has a list. He cites five priorities on Day One: rescind every “illegal and unconstitutional executive action”; instruct the Justice Department to investigate Planned Parenthood “for those horrible videos”; instruct the Justice Department, the IRS and every other federal agency “that the persecution of religious liberty ends today”; rip up the Iran deal; and move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

A true unifier off to a unifying start!

How will Cruz win the presidency? Like Ben Carson, he wants to rally evangelicals to vote. He claims there are 90 million evangelicals in America and 54 million of them stayed home in 2012. He argues that if only 10 million of those 54 million vote in November 2016, he’d ride that wave into the Oval Office.

(Incidentally, Cruz and Carson may want to huddle on the sidelines of the upcoming Cleveland debate and get their facts straight. When I saw Carson on July 7, he claimed 30 million evangelicals didn’t vote in 2012.)

Cruz takes four questions including this toughie, “Which in your view is the greater threat: ISIS or our K-12 educational system?”

“The cynical might say the latter is being run by the former,” Cruz shoots back.

Another questioner claims Mitt Romney won the 2012 election but voter fraud in blue states “stole” the race for Obama. Cruz nods and replies, “Voter fraud is a serious problem.”

But Cruz, who assures us “I’m a data guy. I’m a numbers guy,” has a simple solution to overcome stolen votes by shifty leftists.

“We’ve got to win by enough of a margin so that they can’t steal it from us, so that fraud is not a possibility,” he says.

Revealing his we-need-a-landslide-to-combat-rampant-voter-fraud strategy, Cruz looks so serene. Does he know something we don’t?

Blog Author

Morey Stettner

Portsmouth resident Morey Stettner loves to meet and judge presidential candidates, from front-runners to fringe players. He’ll show up, shake hands and give you a close-up view of New Hampshire retail politics. He’s the author of five books ... Read Full